


Knows That Now

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Body Horror, Dubious Consent, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Orgy, Past Abuse, Scars, Sex Pollen, Trust, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:40:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a sex pollen-induced orgy, Tony’s reaction means he needs some comfort from those he loves best in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knows That Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyShadowphyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/gifts).



> Guys, this starts off with a fluffy sex pollen orgy and quickly goes very angsty, so you were warned!

Tony was sure the mad scientist du jour had been expecting to get to his fancy new weapon a lot sooner than he had. But he hadn’t planned on Thor shorting out his generator, the Hulk smashing through his walls, or the Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America to start systematically dismantling his lab with extreme prejudice while Iron Man blasted away every remote-operated robot and mutated armadillo he sent against them.

Undoubtedly he’d planned to put his ray on a much higher setting too for more immediate results, but beggars couldn’t be choosers when one was staring down the Avengers. It was more luck than design that he caught everyone in the beam as he’d desperately mashed the controls, more due to the beam bouncing off the smashed bits of metal than anything deliberate. But since the initial effects were, “Hey, I think it got a little warm in here,” there wasn’t much he could do to capitalize on the effects before Natasha had trussed him up like a Christmas turkey and tossed him into a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport.

It was the slowly-growing after effects that might have made a difference in the battle.

On the trip back to the Tower, Tony was feeling good. Really good. Happy at being with his friends, happy to know they were close, so damn happy that he knew he was grinning like fiend. 

That happiness quickly bloomed from just being happy at being _near_ his friends to wanting to touch them, to _needing_ to touch them, to be touched by them, the feeling growing every second. A pink haze descended over Tony’s vision as he looked around at the others, Steve’s cheeks pinking as he shoved his cowl down and opened the throat of his costume, Bruce biting his lip and loosening his normal death-grip on his shredded pants, Natasha’s hands roaming across Clint’s shoulders in the front seat, and Thor running a restless hand over his thigh.

Bruce, of all people, broke first, lunging up and into Thor’s embrace, whom might have been waiting for him to move, because he opened his arms and met Bruce’s mouth halfway, kissing him fiercely, one hand in Bruce’s hair, the other broad palm flat on his back.

“Clint, land us fast,” Natasha urged, her hand under Clint’s vest as she turned to watch the show.

Those were about the last really coherent words any of them said for the next two hours. 

How Clint managed to get the Quinjet down without crashing into something Tony never figured out, not when he’d been too busy kissing Steve halfway into next week and cursing in three languages because he was covered neck to toe in metal.

They got as far at the living room, and a semi-soft and horizontal space was all that mattered. 

Clothing and armor and weapons went flying to every corner of the room, some with JARVIS’ help, others stripped off by hand with hot mouths following every newly-exposed patch of skin. For long minutes there was just that, mouths and hands everywhere, touching and exploring, learning what made the other gasp and moan with pleasure. Steve had hollows below his hipbones that might as well be trigger points, and if you pressed up just _so_ with your lips on Bruce’s neck, he went down in a boneless, trembling mess.

At one point Tony was showing off deep-throating skills he hadn’t had a chance to use for years as he made Thor lose control, and moaned helplessly when Clint’s tongue probed and thrusted into his ass with a dexterity that just shouldn’t be allowed. Steve was under him, his mouth full of Tony’s cock, his hands caressing Tony’s sides and everything felt so damn _good_ that a tiny warning bell in his head went completely ignored, drowned in pink haze.

Bruce was rutting up against Thor in the next minute, using those damn gorgeous abs for the purpose all the gods had made them, while Natasha descended on Clint with wicked teeth, a thorough knowledge of where to use them to make him buck, and somehow, a huge bottle of lube.

“Bless you my child,” Tony said, diving for it eagerly, skin tingling as he turned to find someone, anyone, who needed to be touched.

The pink haze intensified, and things became a little less clear after that, though no less magnificent. Tony was certain he recalled double-teaming Thor with Bruce at one point, because feeling the god of thunder orgasm around him had been the stuff that legends were made of. Clint and Steve had had him together at another point, holding him up between them, as Natasha and Bruce rocked together slowly until Thor had regained the power of locomotion. 

Tony remembered his head between Natasha’s thighs, his mouth on everyone’s dick, fingers touching him and them everywhere (another mental alarm rang and he ignored it), and every orifice being filled. He remembered rutting up against his friends’ gorgeous bodies, laughing with abandon as they held him down and rubbed off against him, of being slick and touched and filled and _cared for_ and coming so often that his thoughts had become muzzy and unfocused as if he’d drunk his entire bar. (And if a few more tiny, miniscule alarm bells had gone off, they were drowned out by the moans and gasps.)

It had been fantastic. He couldn’t wait to do it again. Maybe with some more people. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there had been someone missing. Or something he’d missed.

\--

The pink haze finally cleared from Tony’s eyes as everyone lay tangled together on the carpet, warm and sore and sticky and content. He was half-sprawled over Thor, with Steve’s arm around his chest and Clint’s arm snug around his thigh. Bruce was curled between Thor’s legs, hands wrapped around those impressive thighs, while Natasha was arced between Clint and Steve, one hand slid up his arm to rest against the bottom of Tony’s ribs.

Bright sunshine was streaming in the window and illuminating everyone without pity. Below Steve’s arm, Tony could see the radiating scar tissue from the arc reactor peaking out, shiny and discolored. Clint and Natasha’s hands were within inches of the device, Steve’s hand was right over it, and Thor stirred sleepily and flopped one heavy hand over Steve’s bringing the total to four. Tony’s memories replayed suddenly, of them gripping him, manhandling him, tongues across his chest and cocks sliding along his abs, of them worshipping his body…

Tony was seized by a spasm of fear so powerful he actually broke the grip of four of the most dangerous people on the planet and was across the room in a corner with his own arm protectively across his chest before he could think.

Fight-or-flight adrenaline was making his heart pound as he tried to sort things out, a half-dozen mingled fears fighting to make themselves known. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ He hadn’t intended, had never meant to— He hadn’t been ready, wouldn’t have done it if the ray hadn’t stripped him of anything but the need to touch and _be_ touched. He hadn’t been ready to be seen or touched like that.

 _Jesus fuck Stark, get a grip. This used to be foreplay before the_ really _kinky shit happened,_ he tried to tell himself fiercely.

Yeah. Before. Tony knew he was shaking and he’d never wanted to leave anyplace so fast in his life. But right now he was without his suit and his legs wouldn’t hold him for long and he wasn’t sure if he could get his voice to work.

There were some murmurs from the pile-up on the carpet, and Tony saw Natasha finally extract herself and cross over to him, back to the others to shield them, giving him just enough space. She’d blinked the post-sex daze out of her eyes, and looked as alert as if she’d just answered an assembly call. Whatever hint of an afterglow Tony had fled at the look she was giving him.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked quietly.

The question wasn’t as inane as it seemed, not with Tony covering the reactor like it might be taken from him at any moment. Natasha knew he’d been injured, tortured, and held against his will, but there were an infinite number of ways the Ten Rings could have chosen to break him. One way was very logical to think about, considering Tony’s reaction to the arousal ray-fever finally subsiding.

But Tony shook his head no.

The Ten Rings hadn’t needed to rape him to prove their dominance, no matter what salacious horror stories the media would hint at whenever they felt the need to find a new angle to attack him. They hadn’t needed to, because he’d already been humiliated to his core watching soldiers that had been protecting him cut down by weapons he’d designed to defend him. They hadn’t needed to force him like that because they’d already ripped him a new hole, deeper and more lasting than anything else they could have done. Yinsen had had to wire a steel pipe into his ribs because of their attack, replacing part of his sternum, going so, so deep into him so the electromagnet could still that deadly shrapnel heading for his heart and steady its faltering beat. 

He’d been profoundly dependent upon his captors for every flutter of the battered muscle in his chest, the strap from the car battery cutting into his shoulder, the weight of it a constant reminder of how deep and far he’d been fucked. All the Ten Rings had to do to him to get him to capitulate was to threaten his diminished air supply and make motions like they wanted to take the battery away from him.

Tony had come up with the arc reactor to get a little of his own back. Iron Man had followed, giving him the strength his genius had always provided, helping to put the faces of those dead kids, their fatigues covered with blood, in perspective. They would have gotten him free or died trying. They had. Yinsen had. Tony wouldn’t let that happen to him; he _always_ paid his debts.

It just hadn’t occurred to him until he was struggling for air with his head thrust into a pool in a cave, his damaged heart beating wildly, how monstrous his bill was.

He’d gotten out; he’d started to pay his debts, struggling against that steep hill and feeling like Sisyphus. But he hadn’t stop, hadn’t quit. He was still Tony Stark, but he had a mission to do, something a lot more important than trying to recapture everything from his old life. He couldn’t be like he had with Christine, giggling and rolling off the bed in their abandon for a few hours of mutual fun. He couldn’t throw himself into that kind of closeness again. He couldn’t _expose_ himself that much again.

The last people to get that close were the Ten Rings, Yinsen, Pepper, and Obi. Two of them had tried to kill him, two to save him. One had died for him, two because of him, and Pepper…

God. Pepper. 

He wasn’t ashamed of the arc reactor – he had custom-made shirts to let the light shine through, for God’s sake. It showed he hadn’t let death stop him, that he’d gripped what remained of his life in both hands and refused to let go. He wasn’t afraid of the _fact_ of it, and could honestly say he admired the form of it, the technology. That was a work of beauty, and he’d defend that to anyone who challenged it.

But he had a goddamn crater in his chest with an inch and a half of hideous scar tissue around it, not to mention the discoloration and prominent veins from him being a stubborn ass and letting the palladium poisoning progress so far. He’d let Pepper see it close up because… well, there hadn’t really been a choice at the time he’d needed to replace the Mark I chestpiece. And there had been the great distraction of having his life in her hands to keep her thinking on the metal and tech than the chop-shop cyborg state of his flesh. Pepper had held his heart in her hands and still really hadn’t been subjected to his ugliness in full.

They’d gotten close, and then closer, and he still hadn’t _done_ anything with her. Some of it was taking it slow, making sure that with everything that had been going on neither of them ended up rushing into something they were going to regret. It would have been stupid to sour what they had by running headlong into the horizontal mambo before they were sure. Sure that Pepper was really okay with Tony risking his life on a regular basis, that Tony wasn’t going to push for more than she could handle, that their trust had grown back over the rifts of Iron Man and palladium poisoning and years of misunderstandings.

And also Tony’s own playboy reputation running right up against the fact that after Afghanistan, before today the most intimate he’d been with anyone was holding and kissing Pepper. Pepper had been the only one to see his naked wounds, even if he’d been sure to distract her, and the only one he’d willingly let hold his heart in his hand. He’d been hoping ( _praying_ ) that maybe since they’d gotten past a few important thresholds, that the trust had slowly grown back, that he could give himself to her. If he could look into her eyes and see that understanding, that he’d be able to bear the inevitable wince at seeing the ruin of his chest without flinching. And maybe that would be enough so they could touch and sink into each other and everything could become some new and fragile version of Tony-and-Pepper together.

He thought that maybe he could handle that, soft and slow, in dim light so the blue glow the reactor could dull the discoloration of his scars and distract from his wounds. It would let him concentrate on Pepper, on giving her what she deserved for being there for him through everything they’d gone through, together and apart. Tony had though he could handle her touching the reactor and the insensible tissue around it if she needed to remind herself that he was alive.

He hadn’t thought about this, about being completely exposed in broad daylight with five of the deadliest people on the planet manhandling his body. God, they’d had their hands on the reactor, right over his heart as they’d fucked him and he’d fucked them and he adored it at the time. One wrong move from Thor and he could have crushed it; one bad word to Natasha and she could have taken it. They’d all _seen_ it in its naked and gruesome glory, seen _Tony_ and the horrible scars all over him. Now that he’d seen Steve and Natasha and Thor naked… if Tony hadn’t been under the effects of whatever that arousal ray had been, his testicles might have crawled into his body and whimpered in shame.

He was painfully mortal and in constant mortal pain with the wounds to match – not sexy scars of battle survived like Clint, or even Bruce’s old marks from his old life, reminders of how far he’d come. No, he’d had a hatchet job done on his flesh (Yinsen had done his best, God bless him, but he’d been focused on function and not form) and Tony knew once he’d seen the wires running under the bandages that no matter what he did, he’d never be whole again.

And, _fuck it_ , if it had been any other day, Tony might have been able to laugh it off, or even be proud about being who he was and what he’d endured. But, screw it, he was physically and emotionally spent, gone, entirely dry and drained, and every big and little fear and insecurity had just come bubbling up to the surface with the force of the Hulk’s rage and _God damn it_ Tony didn’t have a fucking lid handy to keep it all contained this one time.

_Jesus Christ, pull yourself together. You’re a Stark!_

Oh hell no, channeling Dad wasn’t going to work today. Tony let a single ragged breath go in and out before lifting his head and slowly pulling himself straight with one hand. The other he kept over the reactor instead of his naked groin, protecting what was truly important.

“Tony?”

Steve. Damn it, no. He did not need this right now.

“Been my first orgy in a while.” And he meant that to come out nonchalantly, accompanied by a cocky grin with a hint of sheepishness. Instead it came out tight and strangled, his face tight and set like stone in a mask of fear.

“Did we cause you pain? It was a very vigorous bout,” Thor said, concerned. “Are you wearied?”

 _In so many ways._ “I’m not… hurting. Like that.” And oh fuck he hadn’t meant to say the last two words but hell he had and now people were looking at him like they _understood_ or some bullshit like that and no, please and thank you that was not going to happen right now.

 _They saw it, they touched it, they were_ holding the reactor, _had their hands on it, could have taken it… they saw me, saw all of me, saw **everything** , fuck me, they fucked me, I liked it, I _let them touch me _I swear I wouldn’t let anyone else but they did and Pepper…_

“Shall I call Miss Potts?”

JARVIS’ voice echoed down from the ceiling in an uncanny tagline to Tony’s own thoughts and he knew he was nodding, mouth gaping like a fish because he _couldn’t fucking breathe_.

Natasha didn’t touch him, just caught his eyes as he straightened. Her hair was still mussed where he and Steve had had their hands buried in it, her face shiny with sweat, and her thighs slick with all of their come. She managed to look soft and fucked-out and serious and businesslike all at the same time.

“Tony, you want to relax a little? We’ve got this.”

Tony kind of wanted to kiss her, entirely _sans_ arousal ray, for not pressing the issue right now. Over her shoulder, he could see Steve’s confusion and Thor’s furrowed brow, Clint’s raised eyebrow and Bruce’s slightly vacant expression rapidly sharpening. In a minute, they’d probably figure it out. 

He didn’t want to be here when they did. 

Tony staggered around the corner and managed to hold himself up against the wall just out of eyesight, but well within earshot. Natasha had to know he was there. Probably Clint and Steve too.

“What happened?” Steve asked, and Tony could hear the second question under the first. _Do I want to know? Does he want us to know?_

Natasha could have been subtle, she was a master at that, and dropped a hint for the rest of the Avengers to pick it up on their own. But they’d just spent a couple hours driving each other into pleasurable oblivion, and no one was feeling terribly subtle right now. She did it fast, like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound (like ripping bandages off his chest).

“Tony and Pepper were waiting. He hasn’t been with anyone since Afghanistan.” 

He wanted to kiss her and punch her at the same time. They all knew about the theft of the reactor, it had been in his file; add that to Natasha’s words and she’d managed to sum up most of the reasons for his reaction in two sentences. 

_Exposing him…_

But they’d already seen everything he had to offer.

There was a long beat of silence from the living room, and then, “Well, now I feel like a horse’s ass.” That was Clint, sarcastic and self-deprecating, letting everyone take on some shame for not noticing how much action Tony hadn’t been getting since Iron Man, but not letting it go too far. Tony hadn’t even hinted things had been that bad, so how the hell were they supposed to avoid the landmines he’d so carefully buried? They hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t offered, and now they were all covered with little gory bits of Tony’s self-esteem.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Steve asked.

“Pepper will be here soon. Let her handle it.”

“Um…” that was Bruce’s voice, hesitant at first. “Blanket apology? For everyone.”

“Accepted, though there was much enjoyment in this for me,” Thor said. “I extend you all the same, for our desires were beyond our control.” Thor sighed, and from some of the sticky sounds, was finally getting off the carpet. “I must speak to my lady Jane, and let her know her affections remain ever bright in my eyes, though I was compelled to share myself amongst you, my shield brothers.”

“You got a way of putting things, Thor,” Clint said.

“We’re… going to be all right, aren’t we?” Steve again, sounding a little bewildered, but not upset.

Tony knew Natasha knew he was listening when she said, “We’d never hurt each other. And I think we all know that. We’ll be all right.”

He kept one hand on the wall to steady himself and went to stand under the shower until he’d washed away a few layers of shame.

\--

“Tony?”

Pepper. Pepper was here.

Tony closed his eyes and leaned against the bathroom wall to let his thoughts clear. The cold ball of fear and the hot lump of shame had faded over the last two hours (Pepper had been in Malibu, and even with a Stark Industries jet, some things took time) and he wasn’t shaking anymore. 

There were several facts he knew, and he’d forced them out of their hard balls of denial as he’d run hot water over his body and plastered them over the fear and shame to at least start breaking it up. _The Avengers would not take the arc reactor._ Tony knew that. All of them had secrets, and weaknesses, and to threaten one of them with their sore spot? That was a good way of getting the other five right up your ass. They _would not take it._ And if Natasha hadn’t back when Tony had been dying of being a stubborn asshole, none of others would take it now.

 _They weren’t repulsed by his scars._ Tony’s scars, though extensive, weren’t any different, on the surface, than the old knife scars on Clint skin or the belt marks on Bruce’s back. Steve didn’t distain anyone who was willing to _try_ , Natasha knew how Tony had earned his circle of lights and respected that, and Thor was from a fucking medieval culture that thought scars were signs of wisdom. 

Those facts weren’t stopping a whole bundle of emotions from wanting to back him in a corner and slap a paper bag over his head, but he could breathe now. He could use his logic to keep his gut and heart from overwhelming him. He could, he could…

He could try. He’d waited. She’d waited. He could take this day and _try_ or (fuck it) he wouldn’t have the guts to go for it for months.

“Pepper.”

His voice drifted out of the open door to the bathroom, and he could hear her padding closer, barefoot.

_Breathe._

She paused in the doorway, illuminated clearly by the light, while Tony knew he was backlit and indistinct, the bedroom dim behind her. She’d gotten rid of her power suit and was wrapped in a soft robe – someone had told her _something_ about today. 

Tony was naked, exposed (don’t try to hide), and he hadn’t shown that much skin on purpose to anyone since before…

“Tony…” Pepper closed the gap between them with a hug, just like today had never happened, and Tony held her close as she buried her face in his neck. It was just like he’d been in any other dangerous mission and she wanted to make sure he was all still there.

“Need you to do something for me,” he murmured into her hair, slowly drifting them both into the bedroom. “JARVIS, lights at seventy-five percent.” The light went up to just short of Vegas showgirl makeup mirror brightness, and Tony took a deep breath and let it out smoothly. He tried to recapture a little bit of what he’d felt earlier today, that happy, floaty, wonderful feeling of knowing anything anyone did was going to feel good. Because a tiny bit of that would be really damn welcome right now, reminding him that he used to be able to do this, and he could do it again. With Pepper, because they wanted to. His friends had shown him his fears weren’t as big as he’d thought.

“Tell me.”

“Pepper… look at me.” Tony stepped out of her embrace and spread his arms a little, showing himself without artifice or cover, without distracting lighting or mood music or chemical assistance. If he was breaking his two-year dry spell, it should have been with his girlfriend first. Failing that, she got first right of refusal. With _all_ the information. 

He should smile. He should. This was supposed to be…

He _wanted_ her here.

Pepper stepped forward instead of roving her eyes down and kissed him, slow but not soft. She was fierce and heated, challenging him to meet her until _she_ was ready, and if he didn’t love her already, he loved her more for that. Pepper was the one to break the kiss and push herself out to arm’s length to look at him. Tony closed his eyes, but Pepper tweaked a nipple (and oh hey, that still felt good without mad science messing with his body) and Tony opened them again.

“Look at me,” she commanded, and returned to perusing him, her hands trailing down even with her eyes. She went past his collarbones, easily past the reactor, down his hips, and finally rubbed the tops of his thighs in slow circles. Pepper trailed back up at the same unhurried pace until she got to the scarring around the arc reactor, and paused. Her small hands carefully framed the reactor, then moved out, framing the scarring too, then the sides of his chest. Tony swallowed when she moved her hands out to his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes, smiling and serene.

She was framing all of him. _All_ of him.

Pepper moved enough to flick her robe open and pressed herself against him, naked as a jaybird, as vulnerable as he’d been this morning. And Tony let his fear take a long hike as they came together with nothing between them, her hand sliding to cover his heart, a thousand long-overdue plans suddenly becoming real possibilities. He thought he might have to kiss his team later; only a peck on the cheek though, because the rest was forevermore reserved for the woman in his arms.

“You’re the best,” he whispered in her ear.

“Always. You too.”

“I knew that.”

“You know that now.”

Tony buried his face in her neck and could feel the arc reactor pressing into Pepper’s chest, safe and sound. Yeah. He knew that now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt at avengerkink](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/13316.html?thread=30668292#t30668292) \- So, I've had a lot of different potential prompts going through my head while archive-diving, and I've been seeing a lot of OT6 sex pollen induced orgy prompts, particularly towards the beginning, and it made me think.
> 
> See, my head!canon (egged on by Gwyneth Paltrow's interview stating that Pepper and Tony have not had sex as of the Avengers movie) is that the last person Tony had consensual sex with prior to Avengers was Christine Everhart the night before he flew off to do the Jericho presentation in Afghanistan. Cue the attack, the shrapnel, the meatball surgery in a cave (for which he had no anesthetic), and the torture (possible non-con/rape; feel free to be vague here, non-con is my bulletproof turn-OFF), and when he gets back there's the arc reactor in his chest surrounded by a whole new set of scars and a whole host of trust issues that Obie's betrayal only make worse. Probably doesn't help that Pepper keeps quitting, even if she changes her mind.
> 
> Cue the Avengers getting hit with happy-floaty sex pollen that makes everyone fuzzy-headed and horny for each other, and it's all hot and sweet and full of their mutual respect and caring/love for each other despite the dub-con element. And then it wears off and everyone's waking up with clearing heads and to everyone's surprise Tony freaks, tensing up, retreating to a defensible corner and curling up in a ball, protecting the reactor, very obviously having serious trauma from this. I want the Avengers individually and as a group realizing that the one person they kind of expected to be the most okay with all of this is actually the least okay with any of it, and now they have to help him pick up the pieces and put him back together. If there're any pairings rather than starting from (emotional) OT6, I'm partial to Tony/Clint, Tony/Natasha, and Tony/Pepper, but this is still the first time Tony's had sex since Afghanistan.
> 
> Please, Anons, make me cry and smile and hug my pillow from the Feels?


End file.
